What are they?
I’ve been stuck in a 10rd world since the safe act passed in NY.
...but just moved to America I’d like to grab some 30rd mags.
I see some new production Bulgarian steel & polymer, magpul, and some surplus mags out there.
I know prices have gone a little wonky in 2020, but what’s the straight up best, and the best bang for the buck?

XTech ($25) and Reinforced Bulgarian ($16)

I have both, I've used neither (need to get some work done on the mag catch, for some reason I have to dremel down the rear tabs significantly for anything to fit my AK). Each is highly rated, and from handling/loading them I can definitely see why. The Pmags are alright, but for the price I have no reason to purchase them over the Bulgarians (which personally feel better). Do note that the bulgy mags with the reinforcement are a Gun Mag Warehouse exclusive as far as I'm aware - you'll find polymer bulgarians elsewhere, but they won't have the steel reinforcements as you want.

All things considered, the Bulgarian is what I'd stack deep.  The Xtechs are very solid feeling and I imagine they are a bit better at least on durability, but at least in initial handling and all the other reviews I've seen I don't know that I'd consider them $9 better. The one instance I'd probably grab xtechs over bulgarians is if I was using my gun with heavy thick gloves, whether that was chem protection, cold weather, or other, in which case their much thicker texturing (waffling, ribs front/rear) and bulkier size would actually help it. But the bulgy has plenty of traction with bare hands or gloves in handling it, and you can just ad deck tape if it doesn't and still be significantly cheaper than the xtechs.

Croatian

Fit my M70AB2 perfectly.

any military surplus mags will be good and reliable, regardless  country of origin,  just hunt around the "net" to find the cheapest

Serbian

The original

I personally hold that the Bulgarian ((10)) circle ten mags are the best available. About 40-45 a piece atm

I'd be careful on these, they are not made to spec and do not fit in very many rifles without modification. Out of 5 I purchased only 1 fit in my Russian and Bulgarian rifles without modification. Rob Ski did a video on them and had similar results.

I'd stack the new Bulgy mags deep, although I have to say the steel European & Chinese surplus mags are  solid enough to hammer nails in with!

Just FYI, they changed the slope of the ramp leading to the locking lug and are fitting much better in the newer production runs. Old ones are still an issue w/o modifications.

Thanks guys, ordered some reinforced Bulgarians.
I’ll put in an order for surplus next week.
I had surplus Russians and chicoms years ago when NY was pre-ban only, but it looks like these are hard to find now.

Is there any difference in quality in the satellite state mags?
I assume East German are top?

Also, are magpuls worth buying at all? I had some 10 rounders, they weren’t as stout as the steel mags but they never gave me an issue.

The Bulgarian steel reinforced polymer mags are excellent, as are their metal mags with plastic followers.

I just bought 10 of the Serbian polymer mags from apex for around $11 each. So far they have been good.

I bought Croatian ones since they were really cheap at the time. I only have a WASR-10 and none fit. I used my Dremel sanding disc to lightly ground above the locking tab. The area above the tab is a bit too high compared the Romanian surplus ones I bought. I do like the Bulgarian ones even though the follower is plastic but I did not have do anything to make them fit.

For new steel production, I’d go Bulgarians over the Croats or Koreans. All functioning mags but Bulgarians seem to use the heaviest gauge steel although both the Croats & Korean do come with steel followers while the Bulgys are plastic.

But I’d still check out surplus mags first, getting hard to find like new/unissued mags but they’re still out there, and Romanian, Hungarian & Polish mags are still reasonable.

I think Apex still has Very Good Romys for $22 and DK Firearms has the Like New Polish for $25. For a long time Hungarian mags have been easy to find in very Good/Like New condition but not sure who has them in stock these days.

And I still recommend Magpul MOEs for cheap new production poly mags. They won’t last forever like surplus but the have great feed geometry, seem to fit everything without mods and are easy to find. And you won’t cry if you lose one in the weeds.

Bought 5 new Croatian mags from PSA. they are indeed revised and have less material above the lock tab.

If money were no object, all were readily available, and weight was not a concern, I would probably buy in this order:

Circle 10 polymer waffle mags
Surplus steel in very good / like new condition (Chinese or Eastern European)
Toth Tool polymer waffle mags (still a little untested)
Bulgarian commercial steel
Magpul M3 (I've heard complaints about them but have not had any issues myself)
Bulgarian commercial reinforced polymer

I like the reliability and durability of the Circle 10 polymer mags, but they are expensive, heavy, and bulky.

A couple novelty mags that are great but expensive and hard to come by:

Surplus Russian bakelite
Hungarian 20-round "tanker" mags

Based on availability these days, I'd probably look for Bulgarian commercial steel, Magpul M3s, and Bulgarian commercial reinforced polymer mags. Surplus mags still seem to show up at What A Country and a couple other places, but they're getting expensive and hard to find. Prior to the pandemic, surplus steel mags were already rare to find at shows, compared to a few years ago.

Good list, I would add Xtech MAG47 to that list, probably above Toth since the XTechs seem to be in wider use and have a solid track record.
Edit: I would also probably add AC Unity to the bottom, they are pretty awesome range mags, steel reinforced lugs and BHO follower for their price is quite good imo.

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't tried either of those but will keep an eye out for them. It's interesting how a lot of the aftermarket polymer AK mags seemed really expensive at around $25 a few years ago when surplus steel mags were still cheap and plentiful. As the supply of surplus mags has dwindled, their price has gone up to where many are now around the same price as aftermarket mags.

Magpul M3 with the steel reinforcement is probably the best bang for the buck for a new production mag. Bulgarian ((10)) waffle mags have long been considered best run about $45/ea.

I'd buy the Xtech MAG47s over the Magpul M3s. They are the same price but the MAG47 has reinforced feed lips and you can get the model with the BHO follower for like $1 more.

I loved everything about the M3s, with the exception of them not fitting into any of my rifles...  

Gonna have to get one to try it out!!

I just got a email from Arms unlimited. They have black 30rd circle 10s on sale for $35 each.

They were out of stock within 10 minutes of that deal being posted on AK Files.

I signed up for the back in stock notification and got an email at 1:43 PM, saw it an hour later, went to the website, and they were out of stock again. Signed up for another notification and got one at 8:08 PM. Again, I didn't see it til an hour later, and they were out of stock when I checked. I think they may have been adding them to the website inventory in batches so they wouldn't get cleaned out all at once, but maybe it was some kind of inventory glitch. Just wanted to mention that, because it might be worth signing up for notifications and checking back in the future if they list a high demand item like that.

Guess they went quick. I got four more to add to my stash.

Looks like aim surplus has them now for $39.95.

Brand new Circle 10 30-rounders:

3-Pack For $99